By dr. Metod Berlec
In recent months, our magazine has repeatedly warned that Golob’s neo-socialist government is leading us down the path of South American Venezuela. In the decades after World War II, Venezuela, as a capitalist country and one of the leading global oil exporters, experienced rapid development.
And in 1998, under the leadership of Hugo Chávez, who was elected president with socialist promises, the so-called Bolivarian Revolution began in Venezuela. It was followed by controversial changes to the constitution, and high oil prices in the early years of his rule allowed for increased social spending and a reduction in social inequality. However, the socialist measures of Chávez’s regime (restricting free market economy, demonising domestic and foreign business owners, limiting democracy and freedom) eventually started to destroy the Venezuelan economy, including its highly profitable oil industry, gradually pushing the country into poverty. Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, continued and escalated these measures after 2013, even with increased repression from his corrupt regime, leading Venezuela to become one of the poorest countries in the world. It became a failed state, and millions of its citizens fled poverty and repression. (Venezuelan political dissident Alejandro Peña Esclusa provides a comprehensive and informative account of all these events in his books “Forum São Paulo and the Cultural War” and “Electoral Frauds of the Forum São Paulo”, both published by our publishing house, Nova obzorja.)
Slovenia has found itself in a position after more than a year of Golob’s left-wing government, where there are increasing signs that the ruling leaders are leading our country in a similar direction. This was recently pointed out in one of his tweets by former minister, blogger, and publicist, Dr Žiga Turk. “In Slovenia, a Venezuelan scenario is unfolding. A somewhat democratically elected authority, but without checks and balances, accustomed to governing with the help of lawyers but not with legality, will gradually introduce authoritarian socialist patterns in all areas, spiced up with woke nonsense. As this will not yield results, the authorities will act in three directions: 1) They will introduce what does not work even more decisively. The prevailing narrative will be: socialism is not the problem; the problem is not enough socialism. 2) People and the economy will be burdened with additional taxes and levies. They will take from where there is because, according to their principle, where there is not, not even an army can take. As long as they can take from the minority to feed their voters, it will work. But at some point, this will run out, and things will get worse for everyone. 3) Due to increasing dissatisfaction among the people, the grip of power will become tighter. First, they will thoroughly control the media, silence critical voices on social media, and then ensure people’s love for the ruling party with a firm hand of inspections, inquisition-like bodies, and the police. The frog will be boiled slowly. The stove can only be turned off if enough people to the left of the centre realise where this is leading. It is time for democratic left-wing forces to emerge in Slovenia.” And the recently presented recommendations from Golob’s “Strategic Council for Preventing Hate Speech” only confirm the above. The authorities are trying to restrict freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and persecute all those critical of the government under the guise of so-called hate speech.
At the traditional SDS camp in Bovec on Saturday, the party’s president, Janez Janša, spoke about the government’s work, the crisis of values, and the party’s stance. He was critical of the government’s performance and highlighted that SDS is waiting for good initiatives from the government, but unfortunately, they have not seen any. The government is even diverting funds from strategic infrastructure projects while having no problem allocating funds for “left-wing non-governmental organisations” based in Metelkova Street in Ljubljana. In the second part of his speech, Janša addressed the state of values in Slovenia and emphasised that “blatant lies, something that can be proven at every step to be untrue, are being sold as mainstream, something that must be accepted, otherwise you are considered old-fashioned, uncultured, provincial, and unsolidary”. He urged people to recognise this danger (such as gender ideology and similar nonsense) and to raise awareness about it among others, which he referred to as “common sense”.
In conclusion, SDS is now forced to fight for “common sense”, which is lacking in Golob’s government. Janša stated, “SDS has a history that goes back further than independent Slovenia. We dreamed of Slovenia, fought for it, and always stood up for it. This has been a journey of numerous victories and defeats, as well as a journey of lessons. We have learned a lot. We must be patient until the moment when it is possible to form a strong coalition that will lead Slovenia back to the path for which we voted in the plebiscite…”